The Great Pokémon Challenge (Playthrough Game!)

[Katsuya]

So, update now I'm past Vermillion:

DESTROYED Misty with Kadabra. Seriously, ruined her team. Caught another Abra, went through Diglett Cave to then go trade that for the Mr. Mime you can get. Went and picked up Drowzee as well, then blitzed through the SS Anne. Had to pick up a Bellsprout to teach it Cut but that's all it's there for. Drowzee evolved in to Hypno in the Gym, then Mime and Kadabra tore through Surge. Raichu took two hits with a Psybeam from Kadabra.

I may have had an easy time because, you know, Gen I Psychic types > all.

So, the team as it stands:
Kadabra (Lv. 28) - The star of the team, obviously. It'll get all the important Psychic moves when I get the TMs.
Mr. Mime (Lv. 26) - Odd tank. Has a fair bit of Speed which means he can set up Barrier quickly and take some early hits, before wearing anything down that takes longer than a few hits.
Hypno (Lv. 26) - Oddly, the Physical powerhouse, since his Attack is miles better than either of the other two. Headbutt and Hypnosis are a great duo.

The plan is to wait until I can get Exeggcute in the Safari Zone, then go nab Jynx (who'll probably lead out against Giovanni and Lance and that'll be all she's worth ) and Staryu (Starmie shall be my other TM whore <3) in the Seafoam islands

[stokeriño]

Gone through the SS Anne and beaten Lt. Surge. Knew I had to rely on my Parasects (my only non-flying bugs atm), but in fact even one of them was enough. I forgot that his Raichu isn't as much of a bitch to defeat outside of Pokemon Yellow.

I can see myself looking to get a third Parasect in the distant future if only because they seem to be fairly versatile with TMs. Will probably get a Scyther and a Venomoth, which will see the Beedrills drop out...but that's a while off yet too.

TEAM

Parasect Lv 29

Parasect Lv 28

Butterfree Lv 23

Butterfree Lv 22

Beedrill Lv 17

Beedrill Lv 17

[tenaciousg]

Since my last update, I've done it: my team's filled out, and best of all, I GOT A WAILMER!

I struggled a bit with Norman, but I was eventually able to work through Slaking's loafing (thanks to Merrill (and the Wailmer, eventually) being absolute beasts once their Rollouts get going). The Flying-type leader wasn't too much of a problem, again considering the whole "I've got a water mouse who can apparently turn into a rock" thing. I don't have the levels right now, but here's the line-up.

Pearl, my female Wailmer, was at least ten levels behind the rest of the team when I got her... and despite that, she's still lagging behind a bit.

GeorgLopez is still a Lombre. I forgot that he evolves with a Water Stone, not a Leaf Stone... so sadly, it's still not Taco Duck Time.

Megalodon, a Sharpedo I caught and then evolved after my last updte, qualifies for my team right now for being a Water-type, but he has no Water-type moves. I think I'll grind him up a bit since his maxed-out Crunch will be a good tool to use against Liza and Tate.

Merrill is probably unintentionally the backbone of my team.

Seagull should probably be taught some kind of more powerful Water-type move alongside Strom, considering they're both stuck in their ways with Water Gun.

Strom has evolved into a Swampert, but he hasn't really seen a lot of action recently in favor of grinding up Pearl and Megalodon.

[HC]

I just defeated Misty for the second badge and am in the process of exploiting the Nugget Bridge to get more money. I spent waaayyyy to much time in Mt. Moon looking for Clefairy, which I finally caught. I also nabbed a level 5 Jigglypuff that I have no intention of training. I may or may not be switching to Pokemon Crystal in the next couple of days, provided I can get it on my TI-Nspire. In that event, I'll probably request a new type.

[Rocketbusta]

Late to the party, but I'll join in FireRed and all that.

[En Dub]

Quick update for day 2. Made it through Mt. Moon with zero difficulties, beat my rival with Charmeleon only losing 17 hp for the entire fight. Beat nugget bridge and the path to Bill before taking it to Misty. Staryu got OHKO'd by Mega Punch and two hits to knock out Starmie. My hardest fight ever is already done and in the books.

Now, my level 30 Charmeleon and I are on to Vermillion City and I feel a little silly for not being psyched about getting fire type.

[Benji]

Actually Kats, sorry, but can you cut me out of this? I forgot that I'd started a game a week or two back that I forgot about, and I want to keep playing that save.

[Katsuya]

Late to the party, but I'll join in FireRed and all that.

If you want to take Benji's Flying type one then that works (Y)

[tenaciousg]

So three interesting developments. The first is that I beat Liza and Tate, so I've only got Juan left before I can hit the Elite Four. The second is that apparently my entire team has caught the Pokerus. I don't know what it is, only that it's extremely rare and helps boost growth. Third, and most importantly: I got a Water Stone and evolved GeorgLopez. IT'S TACO DUCK TIME!

[Chris2K]

Oh yeah, my team got the Pokérus as well. Only the second time its happened to me, the other was a Leaf Green game.

[Benji]

I seem to get it in every game, which is just weird, because it's got less of a chance of happening than shiny Pokémon, and outside of red Gyarados, I've only ever managed to catch or breed one shiny (Raticate on original Silver, for those interested, which is no-one).

[tenaciousg]

I've only ever gotten two Shinies outside of the Red Gyarados. The first was a shiny Totodile that I ended up saving over when I'd forgotten just what made my Soul Silver file so special... the second was a shiny Durant in Black 1.

Also, it seems like every time I play Emerald, I find another battle that proves itself to be an exercise in frustration. This time, it was the battle against Juan. He brought out his Kingdra, and every. Goddamn. Time. I'd get damage on it, he'd use a Hyper Potion, or he'd use Rest, or he'd spam Double Team, to the point where it pretty much only went down because it ran out of PP for its own moves (a scenario which I'm 99% sure only happened because its seemingly-endless barrage of Water Pulses found themselves not-so-effective against my Water-types), paired with GeorgLopez basically one-manning the entire Gym.

It was almost laughable how much of a squash the rest of that battle was; after the Kingdra fell, all that was left was a Crawdaunt that GeorgLopez took out after two Absorbs.

[Benji]

I hate that leaders use potions. I feel like at the start of the game you should be able to set rules allowing or disallowing healing items in battle.

[tenaciousg]

If you hate that, then you'll fucking despise Emerald. All leaders have at least two healing items, and from roughly the fourth or fifth badge on, they all have Hyper Potions. And I believe that all of the Elite Four members have Full Restores.

[Benji]

I recall. I seem to remember busting out Flygon's Fissure on more than one occasion.

[Rocketbusta]

Late to the party, but I'll join in FireRed and all that.

If you want to take Benji's Flying type one then that works (Y)

Works for me.

[Plubby]

I asked Katsuya if I could do this challenge in reverse (I pick the type and Kats picked the game). I have talked about my idea to do a mono-poison team for ages (notably ) so Kats picked RSE, so I am going to build the first mono-poison team on Sapphire.

[The Red Reuben]

Chris should do this challenge with every type based on how fast he is!

[Plubby]

Of course my first wurmple evolved into a silcoon.

[Berober]

Hah! Take that Steve! All it took was a level 23 Geodude...